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Chicago’s New Wave of Microbrews

Michael & Louises Hopleaf Bar in Chicago has dozens of beers from around the world, but many are local.Credit
Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times

IT’S just shy of 5 p.m. on a sunny spring Friday in Chicago, and the intimate front room of Michael & Louise’s Hopleaf Bar on the North Side is already packed, the decibel level growing. Creative types mix with professionals; young women in stylish jeans and sweaters rub elbows with older guys who look as if they’ve been hitting this bar as long as they’ve been hitting on the ladies.

This is a bar that starts rolling early and doesn’t stop until last call. And it’s all about beer.

The Hopleaf is known for its pages-long brew list, with an emphasis on hard-to-find Belgian imports and domestic craft selections. But a quick check of the couple of dozen taps lining the bar with their colorful and artistic handles shows something more: many of the beers being served are brewed right in Chicago. Just a few years ago, this would not have been the case.

As Chicago has morphed from a meat-and-potatoes town to one claiming some of the country’s best chefs, consumers have started demanding better beer. While the craft beer movement that exploded in cities like Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Philadelphia infiltrated Chicago within the last couple of decades, it’s only lately that the city has experienced a brewing renaissance of its own. Today, local beer is popping up all over town.

Since October, two new microbreweries have sprouted on the North Side. Half Acre Beer, which produces three niche beers at its street-facing brewery on Lincoln Avenue, will open a tasting room for the public later this year featuring six draft lines and small-batch guest spirits and beers, and local food like pretzels, mustard and chocolate.

Metropolitan Brewing, a couple of miles to the north along the tree-lined Ravenswood Industrial Corridor, opened in December; its two lagers, Flywheel Bright and Dynamo Copper, are sold in about 100 bars, restaurants and stores.

This fall, the Revolution Brewing Company will open a 20,000-square foot brew pub in the Logan Square neighborhood in a 100-year-old building that formerly housed a newspaper printer.

As bars cater to the craft-beer audience, they are finding plenty of response. On a Tuesday night in early June, you could barely buy your way into Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Wicker Park. Eager drinkers packed the sprawling brew pub to get their hands — or rather their taste buds — on Baron Von Awesome, a summer release from Piece’s brewer, Jonathan Cutler. This American wheat beer appears every year, something a bit lighter to help cleanse the bitter memories of Chicago’s wintry chill.

Some in the crowd — a mix of hipsters, yuppies and frat boys looking for crisp New Haven-style pizza and tasty in-house brews — waited nearly an hour to grab a table. Others stood two deep at the bar for a taste of the Baron while listening to pumping classic rock.

About a mile away, on a sleepy residential stretch of Damen Avenue, Bar DeVille sits conspicuously among the old graystones and single-family homes of the Ukrainian Village neighborhood. Inside, glimmering candles on each antique-looking table light the dark setting. Velvet drapes, lace curtains and crystal-clear mirrors accent exposed brick walls. The no-charge red-felt pool table is beneath antlers mounted on the wall, and the back room resembles a French bordello or English country house with its inviting mismatched couches, herringbone wood floors and framed landscapes.

About a third of the beers are local, including Goose Island, Three Floyds, Half Acre, Metropolitan and Two Brothers. The rest are domestic crafts and, this being something of a hipster joint, the requisite Pabst Blue Ribbon draft.

“It’s the first bar in Chicago since I moved here from Philly two years ago where you can sit at the bar, talk to the bartenders and learn from them,” said Dan Snyder, a frequent DeVille patron.

In Bucktown, the Map Room offers a free buffet catered by local restaurants on Tuesdays, which is International Night. One week, the menu might be soul food; another, Middle Eastern. But even though the expansive beer list mirrors that global feeling, it is a locally crafted brand that usually ends up on the Beer of the Month board.

“The Map Room has an environment that makes it hard to not try new beers,” said Georgeanna Smith, who has lived in Bucktown since moving from Savannah, Ga., three years ago. Before becoming more adventurous, she said, “I didn’t know a beer could taste like grapefruit and hoppy sunshine.”

In the heart of the Loop, the Wit, a modern, sleek hotel that opened in late May, houses Chicago’s hottest new rooftop bar, Roof, but it’s the street-level gastropub, State and Lake, that offers beer lovers salvation. This masculine space, reminiscent of an English pub, focuses on artisanal beer with Midwestern roots. When visitors want to dig in and really get a feel for what this area’s brewers have to offer, they can taste their way through 16 draft beers at its large, wraparound bar and get lost in the moment.

Back on the North Side at the Tiny Lounge in Lincoln Square, nearly half the drafts come from local brewers, and the chic vibe is comfortable and welcoming. Floor-to-ceiling windows open onto the street, and live music featuring local artists begins in July.

All this activity actually represents a second wave in Chicago’s modern beer movement. In 1988, a local businessman, John Hall, frustrated that he couldn’t find a local beer in Chicago, opened the Goose Island Brewpub on a then-desolate stretch of Clybourn Avenue in Lincoln Park.

Over 20 years, Goose Island became a powerhouse, and it distributes in 15 states, Great Britain and Sweden. Among its most familiar brews are Honkers Ale, Matilda and Bourbon County Stout.

The brewery has also helped anchor a neighborhood that now features big-box stores, boutiques, chain stores and restaurants.

Mr. Hall, with his brewmaster son, Greg, produces 50 beers a year, releasing a new product each Thursday at the pub. And Goose Island has been a training ground for a number of brewers who have opened or plan to open their own places, including Josh Deth and Jim Cibak of Revolution, Tommy Nicely at Half Acre and Mr. Cutler at Piece.

But there are few places more exciting from a beer lover’s perspective than Three Floyds, a quick drive south of Chicago in Munster, Ind. Favorites there include Alpha King, a pale ale; Gumballhead, a wheat beer; and especially the dark and brooding Russian imperial stout called Dark Lord. On the last Saturday in April, the Dark Lord Day festival draws thousands to taste that year’s batch.

Goose Island has two brewpubs in the city (1800 North Clybourn Avenue; 312-915-0071, and 3535 North Clark Street; 773-832-9040; www.gooseisland.com). It offers brewery tours at the Clybourn location at 3 and 4:30 p.m. on Sunday (reservations are necessary); $5 buys six beers and a souvenir glass.